looking back on a political bet

It was just about six years today that my younger son, all languid on the couch, bet me 20 bucks that Hillary Clinton would not win the Democrat election for president of the United States. Living as I do in a blue-blue-blue (Democrat) state (Massachusetts), I figured it was time for him to learn a lesson. I offered him odds on his bet but he declined -- 20 bucks, straight across: Hillary would not win.

Come the day after the election ... well ... the rest is history.

Donald Trump had promised them "good paying" coal jobs. Donald Trump had promised them a Republican health care plan that would bump predecessor Barack Obama's health care law out of the batter's box. Donald Trump had promised to kick the old guard in the seat of the pants. To this day, not one Republican has stepped up and said, "Ooops! -- I screwed the goose." Please notice that a tax cut for the wealthy is now firmly in place ... just as with George W. Bush, another Republican stalwart and another man taken as a dumb-bell.

Tell me -- if intelligence does not pay off and stupidity does not pay off, what, then, pays off?

I thought of this today as my son (and middle child) drove back from Florida where he and his newly-engaged sweetie, Hannah, had gone for a little down time. " "We guessed it was 70 percent not wearing masks," he told me as he drove back towards their house in Georgia and Hannah headed south to visit with her parents. Two minutes after we hung up, the phone rang: "Just thought you'd like to know I passed a gigantic Confederate flag," he announced without preamble.

I paid my $20 bill and tried to remember not to forget -- politics is not my strong suit.

national suicide hotline

 Ask and ye shall receive....

A bill that would make 9-8-8 a national number for those contemplating suicide has cleared the Federal Communications Commission and is headed for the U.S. President's signature. The law, if enacted, would take effect in 2020.

I see no quick-hit clues as to whether Trump will sign it or not. I imagine anyone's suicide might be OK with Trump as long as the one contemplating suicide did not slavishly support him.

I want therefore I am

I probably have said this before, but who knows....?

It is not so much  René Descartes' "I think therefore I am" that is true, but rather, unless I'm off by lot, "I want, therefore I am."

There is nothing wrong with thinking, which is a perfectly good human function. But as the T-shirt aptly observes, "Don't believe everything you think." It is the wanting that muddies the waters, I suspect.

Or maybe I am just swimming in quicksand yet again.

Donald Trump contracts disease he derides

Donald Trump, the president of the United States and a staunch opponent of wearing masks as a means of fending off the Covid-19 epidemic currently sweeping the world, has contracted the corona virus. Further, he has reversed course on granting financial relief to those poor bastards and bastardettes saddled with a love of a president who has bled them dry.

Why exultant Christians, who can be as idiotic as anyone else when the spirit moves them, are not dancing in the Gotcha aisles is beyond me .... or maybe I am not looking hard enough. God gotcha, honey!

The election is coming. When I nudged my wife about it, she grew mildly testy -- "I don't care who they elect," she said simply. It just doesn't matter, her tone said. Donald Trump has trampled all over the country he lives in and has milked. Before it went out of fashion, he would have been called a sociopath ... someone without affect for all others outside him/herself. Hanging Trump in some conspicuous archway, (à la Mussolini), based on his lies and misinformation and the suffering and confusion he has sown...

 

Benito Mussolini, 1945

 

But if you must spit, spit in the corner.

That, and, keep your eyes on the tax rebates Trump has organized (much like George W. Bush) in favor of the super-rich.

Colonial etiquette

Somewhere among the etiquette pamphlets of the (not-quite) early American colonies was this prim addendum, which I always loved:

... and if you must spit, spit in the corner.

among the gun rights ... suicide

Almost 23,000 people die annually by gun suicide in the United States, tragedies that are overwhelming some rural congressional districts clustered in the nation’s west and south, according to new research from the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund.

A dearth of mental health resources, shifting economic realities and widespread gun ownership factor in the devastating and disproportionate local death tolls around the country.

“Nationally, nearly half of suicides involve a firearm. But this congressional district research shows that the national average masks enormous differences between districts,” the Everytown report explains....

Indian and Fertile Crescent farmers have been at this for years .... no reason why we shouldn't catch up.

bling decline

Business is booming at a sea dock in western Turkey, where five hulking cruise ships are being dismantled for scrap metal sales after the COVID-19 pandemic all but destroyed the industry. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

the apricot

 ... still as an apricot on the polished table ....